Navratri isn’t complete without at least a few references to and jokes about how nine consecutive days of clanking daandiya sticks and merrymaking encourage young men and women, deprived of parental guidance, to go on a sexual rampage. As a result, the biggest gainers, apart from a clutch of celebrity performers and garba choreographers, are the country’s condom brands, if reports from the last few years are to be believed. Sample this tweet by comedian Atul Khatri (@one_by_two): “On behalf of the Global Association of Condom Manufacturers & All India Medical Shop Owners Consortium wishing everyone a Happy Navratri.”

Condom sales during Navratri, as the urban legend goes, hit stratospheric heights with growth surges of 25% to 50%, particularly in Gujarat and other pockets in the West and North. The truth is closer to the 10% to 20% range for some brands.

That’s enough for national players to take notice and ramp up marketing efforts. For instance, Durex, a Reckitt Benckiser brand, often releases new communication to coincide with the start of a season of festivals and holidays. Distribution is augmented and point of sale activations increase in what Durex calls “hot spots”, markets with high concentration of younger people, colleges, and restaurants, cafés and bars. Says Rohit Jindal, head of marketing, RB India, “Selling condoms is not like selling face cream. It can’t be pushed, it’s a natural pull.”

For the country’s biggest regional brand, Cobra, manufactured by Noida-based Anondita Healthcare, what tends to happen, according to its proprietor Anupam Ghosh, are sales push at dealer levels through schemes that provide attractive discounts and gifts. “Demand does tend to increase around festivals,” says Ghosh, who points to markets in Anondita’s Northern strong-hold like Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu.

Ranju K Mohan, director and business head, JK Ansell, makers of Kama Sutra condoms, believes tales of a dramatic rise in condoms sales during Navratri are more marketing myth than reality. In truth, it’s the beginning of a three-month long season of festivals, holidays, and weddings that helps push sales up. Nonetheless, it didn’t deter the company from doing a sampling about 4 years ago during Navratri celebrations. It ended in scandal after real Indian sensibilities were grossly violated. KS has stayed out of garba circles after that fateful attempt.

Jindal believes the reason condoms have contraband-like status still is because the category hasn’t evolved beyond “sleaze” in communication. (There’s also that little matter of sex being a shameful act and a taboo topic in India.) In category advertising men become superheroes after purchasing condoms and women are mere props in these fantasies. And packaging of regional brands could be easily mistaken for porn, the kind made on shoe-string budgets.

Durex, a brand more popular in metros, has steered clear of ‘sex sells’ strategy, in what might seem a counter-intuitive move for a product that’s entire reason to exist is sex. But it’s not bizarre, according to Jindal; “All our communication is always aimed at normalising the conservation around sex.” For instance, #DoTheRex campaign with actor Ranveer Singh and more recently a web series called ‘Sex Chat with Pappu aur Papa’ by Yash Raj Films.

The goal is to dissociate sex from shame. So that someday in the future the consumer won’t have to use telepathic powers when he or she wants the medical shop uncle to discreetly slip over the counter, and in full view of Sharma aunty, a box of ribbed, thin, strawberry-flavoured condoms that promise to last at least as long as an episode of Narcos.

Surely one day condoms won’t be treated as contraband. For now though, it’s a message that could use some tasteful amplification around relevant occasions in the marketing calendar, for instance, Navratri. So people who choose to have safe sex aren’t called ‘youngsters with loose morals’ who take advantage of the lack of adult supervision to ‘indulge in sex’.

Festivals, whether religious, spiritual or created to sell Hallmark cards and cola, create occasions of consumption which are capitalised by brands. According to ad agency Scarecrow’s founder, Manish Bhatt, the events of Navratri aren’t too different from, say, a week-long rock concert. Or, for that matter, sport events like the Olympics. Anticipating the Rio Games to turn the Olympic Village into a hot-bed of sexual activity, condoms for men and women were made freely available in mass quantities. 450,000 camisinhas over seventeen days for 10,500 athletes, to be precise.

Bhatt tells us of real estate companies in Ahmedabad that invite potential customers to their sites with the bait of quality time with spiritual gurus during navratras. And then gingerly shepherd the lot to a swanky sample flat. Now, replace guruji with Falguni Pathak and the building site with Pushpanjali Gardens in Borivali - West. However, condom makers haven’t quite summoned up the courage to sponsor daandiya nights themselves. After all, fortune favours the bold but not without landing a few good punches first.

Condom brands are certainly not the sole beneficiaries of the festivities after the festival. Nor the only ones who have bought into the hyperbole of orgies after garba. These aren’t any ol’ haystack romps to some marketers. Stay On, a brand of “power capsules”, released a full-page print ad at the start of Navratri that doesn’t beat around the bush. The copy reads: “Welcome Goddess Durga with prayers and ‘Garba’ revelry. Dance to the thumping beats of ‘Daandiyas’ every night for the next ten nights. Surprise your partner with inimitable graceful gyration, shakes and moves like an accomplished dancer. Outlast, outperform rivals, competitors, companions with electrified enthusiasm. Perform like a man possessed with uncontrolled vigour, vitality and energy. And say ‘thank you Stay-On’.”